39 Years Ago Today July 23, 1983

39 Years Ago Today

39 years ago today I was standing before God, family and friends pledging my love for Kathy.

We had no idea what life would hand us.

We had dreams but no roadmap to how we would get there.

If someone would have told me how our story would look in 2022 I would have laughed at them.

The chapters written have been hard, filled with good times and peppered with some pretty tough times as well.

But here we are still standing after all these years.

If I could go back and talk with my younger self I would say to Rick: “The fear you have right now will pass. God is in this and is orchestrating things to help create the most interesting life He can for you.”

All the worries of the past turned out to be unwarranted. Kathy and I are a team. We compliment each others strengths and fill in the blanks for the others weaknesses.

We never used the “D” word and instead went to counseling to get help when it got bad.

God is always keeping our changes in sync, meaning, we go through rough patches at about the same time. He gives us balance.

Our life together is not perfect and we get irritated with each other, after all, loving someone and being committed to them is hard at time. Hard is part of the human experience.

As we age we have less to hide. In those early days pride kept us from addressing our insecurities and known weaknesses.

Looking back there were times we had no job, times we gave up careers, ran for public office, struggled to make a business, battled cancer, stuck together in our resolve to not bend during COVID and sold our home, gave up our life and moved to Montana…..but our story is not over yet.

If our life together were a book there would be more chapters in our left hand and fewer left to write in our right hand.

But the richness and thoughtfulness with which we write now is much more direct and targeted.

We fear less and risk more.

We care more about endings and less about who likes us or what others think of us.

When people disagree with us we smile and continue on as we believe God leads us.

We don’t look backdown but keep our eyes focused on the horizon.

Why?

Because that’s where God is.

Emuna (Hebrew) means “faith in God.”

If someone asked me the secret to a good marriage I would say it is no secret but Emuna.

We serve a living God and He is the most amazing storyteller.

And when you partner with Him He will make you and your wife/husband part of the greatest story ever told.

Happy Anniversary Kathy.